Friday, April 04, 2008

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Actor, commentator and comedian Ben Stein promises he hasn't lost his mind. Well, he says with his famous dry monotone humor, at least not in this instance.

On the contrary, Stein -– whose documentary film "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" opens in two weeks, April 18 -- believes he's involved in one of the leading cultural and political battles of his life: the fight for academic freedom against an establishment that teaches Darwinian evolution as fact. Intelligent Design (ID) -– the belief that certain aspects of the world are so complex that they must have been created by an intelligent being, instead of by a random process –- deserves a place at the academic table, he says.

"I think I'm engaged in a struggle that's very much uphill in which the establishment is very much against me," he said in a recent telephone conference call with reporters. "But I'm a rebel to my core ... and happy to be in an uphill struggle, as long as the cause is right."

Obviously, conservatives and supporters of Intelligent Design don't believe Stein has lost his mind. Rather, they believe "Expelled" –- one of the year's most controversial films -– has a chance to change dramatically the landscape in the struggle between evolution and Intelligent Design (ID). In the film, Stein travels the globe, interviewing scientists, philosophers and doctors who believe in evolution and those who believe in Intelligent Design. In case after case, Stein recounts the story of ID supporters who lost their jobs or couldn't get tenure because of their supposed controversial beliefs.

The documentary, rated PG for thematic material and very brief language, ends in a climactic scene with Stein interviewing one of the world's leading backers of evolution, atheist and author Richard Dawkins.

Stein's humor is on display throughout the film, although supporters of evolution likely won't find it too funny. Christian conservative leaders are on board, supporting it. The film was shown at the recent National Religious Broadcasters meeting. It's also scheduled to be the topic of an upcoming Focus on the Family broadcast.

ID supporters, Stein and the film assert, are facing staunch opposition... Read More

FORT WORTH, Texas (BP)--A controversial documentary set for release nationwide April 18 could foster a cultural shift "equivalent to the fall of the Berlin Wall," says William Dembski, research professor of... Read More

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--Some 200 students at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary recently got a free sneak preview of the upcoming documentary "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," and they gave it high marks. Read More

SAN ANTONIO (BP)--NCAA college basketball is closing one of its most suspenseful seasons in scenic San Antonio with a Final Four of college basketball royalty: North Carolina, UCLA, Kansas and Memphis.

Saturday's two semifinal games will match UCLA against Memphis and Kansas against North Carolina. The two winners play Monday night for the 2008 NCAA Championship.

Among the crowds in San Antonio will be a sizable representation of coaches and players who, on the basketball court and bey... Read More

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Just 6 percent of national journalists describe themselves as conservative, compared with 36 percent of the overall population, according to an annual survey released in March by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

The State of the Media report said 2 percent of the journalists and news executives surveyed consider themselves very conservative, while 53 percent of national journalists described themselves as moderate, 24 percent as liberal and 8 perc... Read More

CEDARVILLE, Ohio (BP)--Trustees of Cedarville University, meeting in special session April 4, voted unanimously to uphold the termination of David Hoffeditz, a tenured professor in the school's biblical studies department.

In July 2007, Hoffeditz and another tenured professor in the same department, David Mappes, were notified that their contracts for the upcoming school year were being terminated. While Mappes chose not to appeal the action, Hoffeditz took the decision to a five-member fac... Read More

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--People who don't go to church may be turned off by a recent trend toward more utilitarian church buildings. By a nearly 2-to-1 ratio over any other option, unchurched Americans prefer churches that look more like a medieval cathedral than what most think of as a more contemporary church building.

The findings come from a survey conducted by LifeWay Research for the Cornerstone Knowledge Network (CKN), a group of church-focused facilities development firms. The online ... Read More

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (BP)--Let's make this short and sweet. It would be taken for granted by any serious historian that any ideology or worldview would partake of the culture in which it grew up and would also be largely influenced by the personality of the writer of the theory. Read More

ALEXANDRIA, La. (BP)--"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't," the famed literary character Alice quipped. Read More

Formed in 1946 by the Southern Baptist Convention, and supported with Cooperative Program funds, Baptist Press (BP) is a daily (Monday-Friday) international news service. Operating from a central bureau in Nashville, Tenn., BP works with a large network of contributing writers, photographers and editorial providers to produce BP News.